be found. And just the same whistle that had alarmed my mother
and myself over the dead captain’s money was once more clearly
audible through the night, but this time twice repeated. I had
thought it to be the blind man’s trumpet, so to speak, summoning
his crew to the assault, but I now found that it was a signal from
the hillside towards the hamlet, and from its effect upon the
buccaneers, a signal to warn them of approaching danger.

“There’s Dirk again,” said one. “Twice! We’ll have to budge,
mates.”

“Budge, you skulk!” cried Pew. “Dirk was a fool and a coward
from the first--you wouldn’t mind him. They must be close by; they
can’t be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them,
dogs! Oh, shiver my soul,” he cried, “if I had eyes!”

This appeal seemed to produce some effect, for two of the
fellows began to look here and there among the lumber, but half-
heartedly, I thought, and with half an eye to their own danger all
the time, while the rest stood irresolute on the road.

“You have your hands on thousands, you fools, and you hang a
leg! You’d be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you know it’s
here, and you stand there skulking. There wasn’t one of you dared
face Bill, and I did it--a blind man! And I’m to lose my chance for
you! I’m to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when I
might be rolling in a coach! If you had the pluck of a weevil in a
biscuit you would catch them still.”